Vet in Harness

by James Herriot

woollen tammy which he always wore pulled down over his ears were clean

  and regular and the tall figure lean and straight. He was a fine looking

  man and must have been handsome in his youth, yet he had never married.

  I often felt there was a story there but he seemed content to live here

  alone, a 'bit of a 'ermit' as they said in the village. Alone, that is,

  except for Benjamin.

  As I followed him into the kitchen he casually shooed out a couple of

  hens who had been perching on a dusty dresser. Ther) I saw Benjamin and

  pulled up with a jerk.

  The big dog was sitting quite motionless by the side of the table and

  this time the eyes behind the overhanging hair were big and liquid with

  fright. He appeared to be too terrified to move and when I saw his left

  fore leg I couldn't blame him. Arnold had been right after all; it was

  indeed sticking out with a vengeance, at an angle which made my heart

  give a quick double thud; a complete lateral dislocation of the elbow,

  the radius projecting away out from the humerus at an almost impossible

  obliquity.

  I swallowed carefully. "When did this happen, Mr Summergill?'

  "Just an hour since.' He tugged worriedly at his strange headgear. "I

  was changing the cows into another field and awd Benjamin likes to have

  a nip at; their heels when he's behind 'em. Well he did it once ower

  often and one of them lashed lashed out and got 'im on the leg.'

  "I see.' My mind was racing. This thing was grotesque. I had never seen

  anything like it, in fact thirty years later I still haven't seen

  anything like it. How on earth was I going to reduce the thing away up

  here in the hills? By the look of it I would need general anaesthesia

  and a skilled assistant.

  "Poor old lad,' I said, resting my hand on the shaggy head as I tried to

  think. "What are we going to do with you?'

  ~ _

  The tail whisked along the flags in reply and the mouth opened in a

  nervous parting' giving a glimpse of flawlessly white teeth.

  Arnold cleared his throat. "Can you put 'im right?'

  Well it was a good question. An airy answer might give the wrong

  impression yet I didn't want to worry him with my doubts. It would be a

  mammoth task to get the enormous dog down to Darrowby; he nearly filled

  the kitchen, never mind my little car. And with that leg sticking out

  and with Sam already in residence. And would I be able to get the joint

  back in place when I got him there? And even if I did manage it I would

  still have to bring him all the way back up here. It would just about

  take care of the rest of the day.

  Gently I passed my fingers over the dislocated joint and searched my

  memory for details of the anatomy of the elbow. For the leg to be in

  this position the processus anconeus must have been completely

  disengaged from the supracondyloid fossa where it normally Iay; and to

  get it back the joint would have to be fiexed until the anconeus was

  clear of the epicondyles.

  "Now let's see,' I murmured to myself. "If I had this dog anaesthetised

  and on the table I would have to get hold of him like this.' I grasped

  the leg just above the elbow and began to move the radius slowly

  upwards. Benjamin gave me a quick glance then turned his head away, a

  gesture typical of good-natured dogs, conveying the message that he was

  going to put up with whatever I thought it necessary to do.

  I flexed the joint still further until I was sure the anconeus was

  clear, then carefully rotated the radius and ulna inwards.

  "Yes ... yes ... ' I muttered again. "This must be about the right

  position .. .' But my soliloquy was interrupted by a sudden movement of

  the bones under my hand; a springing, flicking sensation.

  I looked incredulously at the leg. It was perfectly straight.

  Benjamin, too, seemed unable to take it in right away, because he peered

  cautiously round through his shaggy curtain before lowering his nose and

  sniffing around the elbow. Then he seemed to realise all was well and

  ambled over to his master.

  And he was perfectly sound. Not a trace of a limp.

  A slow smile spread over Arnold's face. "You've mended him, then.'

  "Looks like it, Mr Summergill.' I tried to keep my voice casual, but I

  felt like cheering or bursting into hysterical laughter. I had only been

  making an examination, feeling things out a little, and the joint had

  popped back into place. A glorious accident.

  "Aye well, that's grand,' the farmer said. "Isn't it, awd lad?' He bent

  and tickled Benjamin's ear.

  I could have been disappointed by this laconic reception of my

  performance, but I realised it was a compliment to me that he wasn't

  surprised that I, James Herriot, his vet, should effortlessly produce a

  miracle when it was required.

  A theatre-full of cheering students would have rounded off the incident

  or it would be nice to do this kind of thing to some millionaire's

  animal in a crowded drawing room, but it never happened that way. I

  looked around the kitchen, at the cluttered table, the pile of unwashed

  crockery in the sink, a couple of Arnold's ragged shirts drying before

  the fire, and I smiled to myself. This was the sort of setting in which

  I usually pulled off my spectacular cures. The only spectators here,

  apart from Arnold, were the two hens who had made their way back on to

  the dresser and they didn't seem particularly impressed.

  "Well, I'll be getting back down the hill,' I said. And Arnold walked

  with me across the yard to the car.

  "I hear you're off to join up,' he said as I put my hand on the door.

  "Yes, I'm away tomorrow, Mr Summergill.'

  "Tomorrow, eh?' he raised his eyebrows.

  "Yes, to London. Ever been there?'

  "Nay, nay, be damned!' The woollen cap quivered as he shook his head.

  "That'd be no good to me.'

  I laughed. "Why do you say that?'

  "Well now, I'll tell ye.' He scratched his chin ruminatively. "Ah nobbut

  went once to Brawton and that was enough. Ah couldn't walk on "'street!'

  "Couldn't walk?'

  "Nay. There were that many people about. I 'ad to take big steps and

  little 'uns, then big steps and little 'uns again. Couldn't get going'.'

  I had often seen Arnold stalking over his fields with the long, even

  stride of the hillman with nothing in his way and I knew exactly what he

  meant. "Big steps and little 'tins.' that put it perfectly.

  I started the engine and waved and as I moved away the old man raised a

  hand.

  "Tek care, lad,' he murmured.

  I spotted Benjamin's nose just peeping round the kitchen door. Any other

  time he would have been out with his master to see me off the premises

  but it had been a strange day for him culminating with my descending on

  him and mauling his leg about. He wasn't taking any more chances.

  I drove gingerly down through the wood and before starting up the track

  on the other side I stopped the car and got out with Sam leaping eagerly

  after me.

  This was a little lost valley in the hills, a green cleft cut off from

  the wild country above. One of the bonuses in a country vet's lif
e is

  that he sees these hidden places. Apart from old Arnold nobody ever came

  down here, not even the postman who left the infrequent mail in a box at

  the top of the track and nobody saw the blazing scarlets and golds of

  the autumn trees nor heard the busy clucking and murmuring of the beck

  among its clean-washed stones.

  I walked along the water's edge watching the little fish darting and

  Ritting in the cool depths. In the spring these banks were bright with

  primroses and in May a great sea of bluebells Rowed among the trees but

  today, though the sky: was an untroubled blue, the clean air was touched

  with the sweetness of the dying year.

  I climbed a little way up the hillside and sat down among the bracken

  now fast turning to bronze. Sam, as was his way, Ropped by my side and I

  ran a hand over the silky hair of his ears. The far st~de of the valley

  rose steeply to where, above the gleaming ridge of limestone cliffs, I

  could just see the sunlit rim of the moor.

  I looked back to where the farm chimney sent a thin tendril of smoke

  from behind the brow of the hill, and it seemed that the episode with

  Benjamin, mylast job in veterinary practice before I left Darrowby, was

  a fitting epilogue. A little triumph, intensely satisfying but by no

  means world shaking; like all the other little triumphs and disasters

  which make up a veterinary surgeon's life but go unnoticed by the world.

  Last night, after Helen had packed my bag I had pushed Black's

  Veterinary Dictionary in among the shirts and socks. It was a bulky

  volume but I had been gripped momentarily by a fear that I might forget

  the things I had learned, and conceived on an impulse the scheme of

  reading a page or two each day to keep my memory fresh. And here among

  the bracken the thought came back to me; that it was the greatest good

  fortune not only to be fascinated by animals but to know about them.

  Suddenly the knowing became a precious thing.

  I went back and opened the car door. Sam jumped on to the seat and

  before I got in I looked away down in the other direction from the house

  to the valley's mouth where the hills parted to give a glimpse of the

  plain below. And the endless wash of pale tints, the gold of the

  stubble, the dark smudges of wood, the mottled greens of the pasture

  land were like a perfect water colour. I found myself staring greedily

  as if for the first time at the scene which had so often lifted my

  heart, the great wide clean-blown face of Yorkshire.

  I would come back to it all, I thought as I drove away; back to my work

  .. . how was it that book had described it .. . my hard, honest and fine

  profession.

  Chapter Thirty-six.

  I had to catch the early train and Bob Cooper was at the door with his

  ancient taxi before eight o'clock next morning.

  Sam followed me across the room expectantly as he always did but I

  closed the door gently against his puzzled face. Clattering down the

  long flight of stairs I caught a glimpse through the landing window of

  the garden with the sunshine beginning to pierce the autumn mist,

  turning the dewy grass into a glittering coverlet, glinting on the

  bright colours of the apples and the last roses.

  In the passage I paused at the side door where I had started my day's

  work so many times since coming to Darrowby, but then I hurried past.

  This was one time I went out the front.

  Bob pushed open the taxi door and I threw my bag in before looking up

  over the ivy-covered brick of the old house to our little room under the

  tiles. Helen was in the window. She was crying. When she saw me she

  waved gaily and smiled, but it was a twisted smile as the tears flowed.

  And as we drove round the corner and I swallowed the biggest ever lump

  in my throat a fierce resolve welled in me; men all over the country

  were leaving their wives and I had to leave Helen now, but nothing,

  nothing, nothing would ever get me away from her again.

  The shops were still closed and nothing stirred in the market place. As

  we left I turned and looked back at the cobbled square with the old

  clock tower and the row of irregular roofs with the green fells quiet

  and peaceful behind, and it seemed that I was losing something for ever.

  I wish I had known then that it was not the end of everything. I wish I

  had known it was only the beginning. But at that moment I knew only that

  soon I would be far from here; in London, pushing my way through the

  crowds. Taking big steps and little 'uns.

  Localwords: Ower Ingledew's Darrowby tuberculin Corner's Rolie barrister

  ye Localwords: ye ye Stilboestrol Trengate mongrels Granville's